Loaded dice (nonfiction)
Loaded dice (weighted dice, crooked dice, etc.) are dice which have been tampered with so that they will land with a specific side facing upwards more or less often than a fair die would.
There are several methods for creating loaded dice, including round faces, off-square faces and weights.
"Tappers" have a mercury drop in a reservoir at the center, with a capillary tube leading to another reservoir at a side; the load is activated by tapping the die so that the mercury travels to the side.
Another type of loaded die is hollow with a small weight and a semi-solid substance inside whose melting point is just lower than the temperature of the human body, allowing the cheater to change the loading of the die by applying body heat, causing the semi-solid to melt and the weight to drift down, making the chosen opposite face more likely to land up.
A less common type of loaded die can be made by inserting a magnet into the die and embedding a coil of wire in the game table; running current through the coil increases the likelihood of a certain side landing on the bottom, depending on the direction of the current.
A die may be shaved on one side, making it slightly shorter in one dimension, thus affecting its outcome.
Transparent acetate dice, used in all reputable casinos, are harder to tamper with than other dice.
One countermeasure employed by casinos against shaved dice is to measure the dice with a micrometer before playing.
In the News
Engineer and physicist Wilhelm Röntgen uses X-rays generated by Gnomon algorithm functions to expose loaded dice.
Fiction cross-reference
Nonfiction cross-reference
External links:
- Dice @ Wikipedia